Mr Mir Sadeq Ansari

Sadeq Ansari has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Islamic studies in Australia (Charles Sturt University) and the USA (Respect Graduate School). His Masters dissertation was on the role of the majority in Islamic theology at the University of Sydney. For the past five years, Sadeq has traveled and lived in Egypt, Turkey and the United States of America learning Turkish and Arabic as well as studying Islamic sciences in these countries. He is currently completing his PhD on Abu Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī’s approach to Hadith.

Al-Tahawi’s Approach to Qiraat (Quranic Readings) and his Use of Preference (Tarjih)

This paper analyses how Abu Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī (d. 321) deals with the different recitations of the Qur’ān that existed at his time. The orthodox position traditionally highlighted in books of ʿulūm al-qur’ān, is that one reading (qirā’at) is not to be preferred over the other different readings (qirā’āt) of the Qur’ān based on ijtihād (independent reasoning). Evidence from the way al-Ṭaḥāwī deals with this topic suggests that while he does see all the readings as coming from God, sometimes he clearly prefers some readings over others, based on logical as well as narration-based proofs, something he shared with contemporaries like al-Ṭabarī.